This story appears in the
June 2004 issue of
Entrepreneur.
Subscribe »
At first glance, it seems like a glamorous business: testing
athletes for drugs. But when you look more closely at The National Center
for Drug Free Sport Inc., a Kansas City, Missouri, enterprise
that Frank Uryasz created in 1999, you start to realize that
there's at least one downside: He handles urine all day.
"We try to keep a very professional environment in our
collection area," says Uryasz, 43, "but we're working
with young people [mostly in high school and college]; and funny
things happen, so you have to keep a level of humor in this
business." After all, according to Uryasz, whose company
employs 10 and brought in $3.7 million in 2003, "all kinds of
things can go wrong. Shy bladders are often a problem, and athletes
[sometimes] drop their specimens. We've all lost a few pairs of
shoes."
It's also a business that may make your kids wish you had a
more mainstream career. One evening during dinner, Uryasz's
17-year-old daughter asked, "Dad, what should I tell people
you do?" He replied, "You could say we help kids stay off
drugs. But if you really want them to know, just tell them we
collect urine," Uryasz says. "She thought it was
gross."
It was then that the Uryasz family motto was developed: We love
urine. Meanwhile, his employees have submitted their own ideas for
company slogans, but Uryasz has so far rejected gems like "Our
business is 'number one'" and "Your urine is in
good hands." "It just goes on and on," says
Uryasz.
As will the business. "Athletes have been cheating for
centuries," says Uryasz, "and I'm afraid they always
will."